Gasman attacks CBI's winter fuel warnings

British Gas has launched a withering attack on the Confederation of British Industry for 'irresponsible scaremongering' over the danger of widespread power cuts during the winter.

Mark Clare, the managing director of British Gas, said that CBI director Sir Digby Jones had 'gone too far' and overstated the risk of interruptions in energy supplies to business if the winter is severe, as weather forecasters have predicted.

Jones warned that because of projected demand, a bottleneck in import capacity and facilities for converting liquified gas back into usable form, there were threats to industrial supplies that could lead to a Seventies-style 'three-day week'.

Jones is due to meet energy minister Malcolm Wicks this week to discuss the problem. Wicks has already made clear his concern at the CBI's tone. Tomorrow, the Commons Trade and Industry Select Committee will take evidence from the industry regulator Ofgem about the supply situation and prospects of power cuts this winter.

Clare said: 'We believe it is important to respond to the scare stories from the CBI because they border on the irresponsible.' He singled out the CBI contention that 'businesses will shut down, people will lose their jobs' because industry supplies would be sacrificed to keep Britain's central heating running.

Clare said that Britain was no longer in the comfortable position of being a net exporter of gas, but that its short storage capacity - there is enough held in onshore facilities and disused fields to last for 13 days - is due to the fact that there is still abundant supply available.

British Gas does not believe that domestic customers will face power cuts, even if there is a particularly cold winter this year.

Clare pointed out that those businesses that did face interruptions would have planned alternative sources - diesel or coal - because they had signed cheaper agreements with suppliers that allowed interruptions when supplies ran tight.

'Any interruption is likely to be brief, and a large number of companies that are affected will switch to alternative fuel sources,' he said.

He added that some businesses would benefit from any shortfall: 'As energy prices continue to rise, very large industrial users will themselves divert supplies back into the market and take profit, again switching to other fuels to keep their operations going.

Widescale interruptions are only likely if there is a failure in a major piece of infrastructure, such as a pipeline or storage facility, such as BG's own Rough field in the North Sea. Clare said billions of pounds of investment were currently going into new pipelines to increase capacity.

Ofgem said this winter would be a bottleneck, and the situation would ease as these investments came to fruition in the next three years.

Sign up for the Guardian Today

Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning.